NeoNote — Unjustified privilege
❝❝You're making unjustified assumptions.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Is the climate crisis a thing? To some (like most pagans), yes. To others like (not conservative) me, no. It's an article of faith, not far removed from monotheism or forgiveness of sin. The issue is that because of the alarmism, those who believe in the climate crisis don't tolerate dissent because of the "urgency" of the problem.
At their best, American Christian conservatives are extremely community minded. A child lost in the woods? They are there looking. Death in the family? Somebody is bringing meals by. The problem is who they identify as being part of the community. Something that is not helped by some like pagans setting themselves outside the acknowledged community.
Most claims of conservative racism are because the conservatives involved didn't see any reason to grant special privilege when people already had rights recognized by law. It doesn't help when conservatives are routinely accused of white supremacy simply for being the wrong skin color regardless of their words and actions. There is a vast difference between not supporting the claims of groups like BLM and being racist. Because conservatives (and libertarians too) see rights as individual and not collective, the idea of identity politics is repugnant. You have rights because you are human, not because you are Hispanic, female, wore a pink hat in a march, or consider yourself non-binary.
What's more, the idea that only "whites" can be racist because of something that was done in their great-great-great grandparents time just doesn't fly. Racism comes in all colors. I've seen casual racism my entire life. I've also seen most people reach out for no other reason than someone else needed help.
Finally, judging people by label is a mistake. The label has no inherent vice or virtue. It's the individual who makes the label mean something through their words and actions, not the other way around. Power from victimhood depends on the pity of others and will make you less than you are.
Here are some of the demands for privilege I've seen during my life.
The idea that one skin color and one skin color alone can decide what is and is not racism. I still know people who try to convince me that a "black" minister saying "Hymietown" is not racist.
The idea that inner-city poverty is a more important than reservation poverty.
The idea that a person whose family came from Nigeria two generations ago has a claim on the success of a person whose family came from China five generations ago.
The idea that skin color should trump evidence in a crime.
And as long as we keep qualifying the legal definition of who is and is not allowed to marry, that problem will not go away. Previously I've pointed out in discussions on this site that somehow in the call for marriage equality poly marriage wasn't even a consideration. That selectivity is a consequence of defining rights by group instead of individual.
Pardon, but the bit about how some threw poly people under the bus should be stressed. Because the "struggle" wasn't about marriage in whatever form it could take between consenting adults, it was about "gay marriage."
It wasn't about rights. It was about privilege for some taken at the expense of others.
No, there wasn't a "polyamorous community" fighting to be recognized. I had some LGBT activists tell me emphatically that poly people didn't deserve marriage because they hadn't fought for it.
That is where my issue is. I'm perfectly willing to fight for equal rights. But I hear demands for "black" rights, Hispanic rights, women's rights, gay rights, and for all I know rights for people with ingrown toenails. Not to mention Christian rights, pagan rights, Muslim rights, atheist rights, and pastafarian rights. That doesn't even count the constant efforts of government to define government powers as rights (police rights, Congress has the right…). It seems that everyone wants to carve out their own piece but no one is willing to help carve out a piece for any group but theirs. Especially if they don't agree with other groups.
It's not about rights. It's about privilege for some taken at the expense of others.
Oh, and by the way, "white" cis males are guilty for all the troubles in the world. Especially when they don't abase themselves to the demands of self-identified victims-of-the-week. No matter what they personally have done or said, "white" cis males are undeniably and collectively guilty. Or so I am told. Again and again and again.
How that is not racist is beyond me.
Meanwhile "people of color" tell me that they are fighting for the rights of the victimized. And they are. But not if those victims live almost invisibly and don't advance certain causes. And definitely not if those victims have different politics. If there is an oil pipeline that gets TV coverage, the "champions" are all over it. But every day poverty on Amerindian reservations, well, that just isn't important enough.
So tell me, when is it reasonable when some victims are deliberately overlooked? Maybe it's not about rights. Maybe it's about privilege.
Human rights are the only ones worth fighting for. Maybe we should worry about the rights we share instead of a place in the pecking order. It's not a right unless the other has it too.
“I still wouldn't characterize them as privileges.”
I know. That's what's so frustrating. Human rights get moved to the back seat, then to the bicycle with a flat tire thirteen rows back.❞❞
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Headline of the year
Wednesday - 27Jun2018 Filed in: Morality & Modern Life
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❝❝If someone wants to forbid gay marriage, what would they do if the law only allowed gay marriage? If someone wanted Bible study in schools, what would they do if the law only allowed the Koran in schools? If someone wanted a Christian president, what would they do if the law prohibited a Christian president?❞❞
— NeoWayland, United We Stand - Dragging religion into politics